The rope in the video (available in the comment link above) is very clearly not linked to one of the instructors.

Given that Belarus has:

• Allowed Russian troops to train in their country
• Allowed Russia to launch part of it’s invasion from their country, and only stopping two months later when it was clear that the blitzkrieg had failed
• Allowed Russia to station missile launchers and fire into Ukraine from Belarus
• Allowed Belarusian troops to fight in Ukraine and only withdraw them once it was clear that the blitzkrieg had failed

I’m not sure how Lukashenko thinks Belarus wasn’t part of the war. It certainly was eager enough when they thought it would be short and they’d get some of the spoils.

I did not know that she asked for it; I was working off several comments like this:

That type of “jump” uses a swinging action rather than elastic rope to break your fall but is still heavily dependent on the idiots working the attraction to tie it to you.

Done correctly, you need to be carrying forward momentum so they toss you rather than trust you to jump outwards enough.

It was invented by rock climbers. Different from bungee.

While I’m going off just the way things sound (because I don’t speak Portuguese) that video does not appear to have anyone particularly concerned until just after she was thrown [I admit I stopped watching just after they threw her off, when the camera focused on the rope on the ground and it was apparent what had happened).

I’m not sure how the fact that the instructors are wearing harnesses is relevant? The woman’s harness/rope/whatever was still clearly not connected to her, and is still on the ground in the video.

Was 31 in 2013 when he ran over that woman, so he’d be about 44 right now - The same age as the man they just arrested.

I accidentally saw the video. Because of the type of jump, they don’t trust people to get far enough away from the bridge on their own, so they pick the person up, hold them at shoulder height, trot forward a couple of paces, and throw the person off. And they did that, they just … left the bungee rope on the ground to their left and threw her off the bridge. No one even said anything until just after she’d been thrown :(

Flood the zone. Move fast, break things.

Probably dogs. No, seriously. Australia. Hawaii. Ireland.

Iirc, they had a tarp up when they put the name in; and they currently have the tarps up now.

What I don’t get is why they’re using scaffolding and making such a complex process. Surely it would’ve been quicker and cheaper to send up some guys in a couple of cherry pickers.

As for the buildings, maybe we’ll see some creative uses like indoor farms or something.

Nope, though I admire your optimism. They’ll get repurposed into concentration camps.

That’s the title on the cover. The title of the article inside the magazine is

How to fight back against Gen-Z socialism

The me-first doctrine is a threat to prosperity

Link to article; link to archived article.

The core of their argument seems to be:

they broadly agree on three core principles. First, that growth does little to help ordinary people. Theirs is a zero-sum mindset, where a better outcome comes not from creating but from taking—as they fear ai barons will soon do on a vast scale. Second, that spending can be paid for by the richest. Once the left wanted higher taxes for everyone; Gen-Z socialists demand handouts funded by billionaires. The third tenet is a remarkable hostility to private enterprise. Gen-Z socialists are uninterested in letting the market rip and redistributing the proceeds. They would have chunks of everyday life, from housing to groceries, governed by state diktat.

designed to deter companies from becoming involved in a proposed West Bank settlement that would split the territory in two

Not deter Israel from stealing more territory, just deter companies from participating.

I’m looking forward to the 1.7 update of Stardew Valley. I love discovering new stuff and going through all the mods people have created.

The French nobles didn’t have private jets waiting to whisk them off to the far side of the planet.

I’ve done that before, and they’ve reverted my comments. I’ve also overwritten and then deleted my comments, and they’ve reverted them. Sometimes it takes them a while - a few months, once over a year - but somehow my comments always magically appear again.

It’s fine to correct the spelling, and sorry for the misspelling! I had to keep fighting autocorrect on a bunch of words, and I screwed up on that one.

Most likely because of the nuclear power plant.

I love the fact that multiple people actually read my three-comment-long story about crazy shit happening - it made me feel good :)

Given Trump’s visit to China, the Iran war is likely being used as an excuse. Not that we aren’t low on munitions, but Xi likely convinced Trump that he doesn’t need or want to defend Taiwan.

Various epilogues:

The FBI confiscated the crystal ball and the Osiris statue, and re-confiscated the stand, for “forensics analysis”. But the staff at the Museum had thoroughly cleaned the stand before putting it into storage, the housekeeper took obsessively good care of the crystal ball, and the Osiris statue had been through too many locations under different conditions and entirely too many hands for anything useful to be found. Eventually, after many years of us asking, they returned the items to the Museum.

There had been a reward offered for the successful return of the items - maybe $10k or something? The homeowner tried to claim it, but was turned down. I personally think it should have gone to Al the homeless junk guy: he explicitly saved the statue from the trash, his actions are the ones that triggered the whole recovery process, and he’s definitely the one who could have benefitted the most. But no :( Eventually they decided to give the money to Jes, who promptly turned around and donated it back to the Museum.

While the theft shows clear signs of some insider knowledge - that there would likely be no Security response to alarms going off, and that the garage would be open and homeowner away - they never caught the thieves. I personally think the number of people who knew both things would be pretty small, but no one was ever charged.

The FBI did a bunch of press conferences congratulating themselves on their diligent fieldwork and years-long persistence in recovering the objects - completely ignoring that they’d long since given up and that there would have been no discovery at all if Jes hadn’t wandered into that junk store. Years later, one of the FBI guys wrote a book and it turned out these were the guys from the FBI’s semi-newly-created Art Crimes Unit, and this was one of their first successful “investigations”.

And, finally: the artifacts have been lovingly cleaned and returned to their display positions at University Museum. If you visit the Museum today and head to the Rotunda, you can see the Dowager Empress Cixi’s crystal ball sitting proudly on it’s solid silver stand, while the Osiris statue lives just a few yards away.

Anyway, OP, that’s my answer to your question: a stolen, 2500 year old, 60 pound bronze statue of the Egyptian god Osiris. I can guarantee that it will cause much confusion over many years.

Then one day, Jes Canby (one of our Museum workers) happens to visit a junk store a few blocks off campus - Jes loves junk stores! As she’s wandering around looking at stuff, several aisles over, she sees something and thinks to herself, “Hunh. That kinda looks like the Osiris statue that was stolen from the Museum a few years ago.” She gets a couple aisles closer and thinks, “Wow, that really does look like the Osiris statue that got stolen!” She goes over to get a closer look and discovers the Museum accession numbers still on the side of the statue. She calls the police.

The police show up. The FBI shows up (again). The shop owner is interrogated: Where did you get this statue?! Why, from Al the homeless junk guy, of course. Al wanders around on trash day and pulls out stuff, and the junk store guy buys it from him. Just last week, he paid Al $25 combined for the Osiris statue and an old side table. Does the FBI want the old side table, too? After much examination and consultation, the FBI does not want the old side table.

And where, they ask, might the FBI find Al the homeless junk guy? I dunno, says the store owner, he’s homeless. So the FBI starts searching West Philly for Al.

Eventually they find him. Where did you get the statue? they ask. “From the curb in front of some house a couple miles away; sometimes they throw away some nice stuff in that neighborhood.” They put him in the car and drive around a whole lot until they eventually find the right house (things look different from a car).

They question the homeowner: Where and how did he get the Osiris statue? “I didn’t,” he says. "I have a large garage and my family and friends sometimes store things there. I was on vacation in Europe a few years ago, and when I got back, this statue was there. I asked my family and and friends about it and no one knew anything about it.

“I started clearing out my garage a month or so ago, and asked again and no one still knew anything about the statue, so I gave it to my brother-in-law; he wanted it for a lawn ornament. Except his wife thought it was ugly and made him bring it back. I didn’t have any use for it, so I put it out with the trash.”

Oh? asks the FBI real casually. Did anything else happen to show up around the same time?

A pause while the homeowner thinks. “Oh yeah - there was a crystal ball, too. I gave it to my housekeeper - she’s really into all that New Age-y stuff. Where does she live? Oh, somewhere across the river - maybe Trenton, I think?”

So the FBI gets the housekeeper’s info and drives across the river to Trenton and knocks on her door. She truly does have a bunch of New Age-y stuff in her place. They ask her about the crystal ball the homeowner gave her.

“Oh yes,” she says. “You know, I used to keep it in my bedroom, but the light in there was just too strong - it burned a hole in my arm!”

And where, they ask patiently, is it now?

“Oh, it’s right over there.” She points. It’s on the coffee table; she’s using it as a hatstand. [continued]